Family:	Pinaceae
Genus:	Picea
Species:	breweriana
Common name:	Brewer’s weeping spruce
Height:	15m
Spread:	8m
RHS AGM

Native to California and Oregon, USA, introduced to the UK in 1897.

Species named for William Henry Brewer, professor of agriculture at Yale University, who discovered the tree. It was introduced in 1897 when Kew took delivery of a single plant, which took over twenty years to bear fruit.

Brewer’s spruce is now a popular tree in UK and Scandinavia, and is widely considered to be one of the most attractive conifers in the world.

This beautifully elegant evergreen conifer has a narrowly conical habit, and is draped in curtains of pendant branchlets up to 2m long. It is slow-growing, and although it reaches up to 40m in the wild, it usually achieves only 15m in cultivation. Hardiness H6

Spruce needles are stiff, sharp and held singularly (not in clusters, as pines). When removed, they leave a woody peg, (not a circular leaf scar, as firs).

P. breweriana has glossy grey-green needles, with two pale ribs on the underside. They are up to 3cm long and arranged in whorls around the stem.

Cones are green, ripening to purple, and up to 10cm long.

Bark is grey-beige with pale horizontal lenticels.

Needs a sheltered position in full sun. Does not tolerate pollution, which causes a build-up of pollutants on the needles, leading to needle-drop. Grow in moist but well drained soil – prefers acid but will tolerate neutral.

Pruning not usually required, but any tidying should be done in spring.

Generally disease-free, but may be troubled by aphids, adelgids and conifer red spider mite.

Propagate by seed, or by semi-ripe cuttings in summer.

Best used as a specimen tree.